More than 2,000 new jobs created in Egypt last week: Investment Authority

Egypt saw 131 new companies established in the week to 15 September, estimated to generate 2,198 jobs, according to the weekly bulletin from the General Investment Authority.

Total capital injected was LE132 million ($22.3 million), a slight increase over the previous week which saw LE128 million injected into 118 new enterprises.

More than 92 per cent of new capital was Egyptian.

The services sector continued to see the most new companies with 44, followed by the industrial sector at 32. The new companies were distributed across all governorates, with Cairo — Egypt’s business, commercial and financial centre — seeing only seven new companies.

Alexandria, however, saw most new capital at LE24 million. Forty per cent of jobs created were technical, 24 per cent were administrative and 16 per cent were agricultural.

Investment in Egypt has plunged in the wake of the January revolution, triggering the country's hardest economic slowdown in 10 years with the annual growth rate sliding to just 1.8 per cent.

Divestment of foreign assets let to a net outflow of $65 million in foreign direct investment for the first half of 2011, according to Central Bank of Egypt figures.